A favorite and oft-repeated jest of the Tobacco Parliament was to set a bear cub upon the back of the writer Gundling.
The notorious assemblage known as the Tobacco Parliament formed the State Council of Frederick William I of Prussia. The brutal king insisted that every one present should drink beer, smoke, and help him in his coarse practical jokes. A favorite and oft-repeated jest was to set a bear cub upon the writer Gundling (pictured here in this early 1900s illustration). Gundling was given every sort of literary honor in public, but made the fool and butt of the king in private. The lad who looks so contemptuously at the scene is the king's son, the future Frederick the Great.
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Keywords: bear, council, frederick, great, gundling, history, jokes, parliament, prussia, state, tobacco, william, writer
